Return to Innocence

The future will see more uncertainty and less assuredness of any organization. Not just because competition will become hotter, but because of our ever-intensifying search for morals and values and for meaning beyond "cheaper, new and improved". Today, those organizations that fail to participate in the ecosystem of the individual will meet with failure. Out of curiosity, how many variables will define the ecosystem? I guess these variables are nothing more than relationships. There are relationships with self, family, friends, society and the world. With some, God may feature as an all - encompassing relationship. All efforts will need to focus on discovering those morals, understanding how they form the structure of relationships, serve those that work and kick out those that fail.

It will be the responsibility of the individual to figure out what those morals are. At each step, we will be confronted by "Either - Or" choices. Should I support stem-cell research or not? Should I be investing more time into this marriage? Should I be calling my parents back home every day? Should I read the prayer-book every morning? Should I give up meat? Should I value the relationship with my significant other? Should I be sending money to that charity organization? Are these books worth the effort? Should I prioritize my career over family for the next three years? Should I be worried about AIDS afflicting India? Are my children watching too much television? Should I be worried about our education systems? Morals, values and meanings.

It will be responsbility of the organization to answer those questions through services - not products, not solutions - just services. Software, the least mature of all industries, is realizing this and heading towards that goal. In fact, one of the most sweeping technological change is the way technology will be served to us - as a service.

As change will be an everyday factor, the organization will need to be adaptable. For adaptability, one of the biggest forces that drove the 20th century will fade away : scale. Centralization and decentralization will become a fad, and loose units funded by Venture Capitalists and mentored by other Entrepreneurs will become the order of the day. Successful ventures will see themselves being nothing more than three / four member units with every other function apart from their core competence being handled by other three / four member complementary partner units. (Note: not merely outsourced). Each unit will seek to manufacture the design that will dominate the industry that will serve the values each person seeks.

One warning though: the path to prosperity can be nothing short of ugly. As each society rises dramatically to a new height, the inequity that other societies face will manifest in many ways - warfare, disease, poverty etc. In simpler terms, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. This could lead to the rise of local despotic tyrants and we would see 19th Century all over again. Therefore, one of the values that will need to be constantly re-inforced through action will be that of "survival". Not of the self, for the self will survive - but that of humanity. Once we have committed ourselves to this value, the rest will fall in place. Taxation laws, funding and collection agencies, media, pharmaceutical companies, distribution agencies, logistics specialists, teachers, venture capitalists etc. will mould themselves to re-inforce this value, this commitment.

Is that of any value to us?